Creating security incident records using a remote network management platform

ABSTRACT

An example embodiment performed by a scoped software application executable on a computing device of a computational instance of a remote network management platform may involve: requesting and receiving, from an application database associated with a third-party software application, alert rules that trigger alerts when associated events occur in a managed network; receiving data representing selection of a set of the alert rules and, based on the data, requesting and receiving, from the application database, a set of past alerts that have been triggered by the set of the alert rules; using mapping data to map fields of the set of the past alerts to fields of a sample security incident record; displaying a preview region including the sample security incident record; using the mapping data to create security incident records that map to the set of the past alerts; and writing, to a security incident database, the security incident records.

BACKGROUND

A remote network management platform may take the form of a hostedenvironment that provides an application Platform-as-a-Service (aPaaS)to users, particularly to operators of a managed network such as anenterprise. This may take the form of web-based portals and/or softwareapplications that enterprises or other entities (as well as bothinternal and external users thereof) may access through computationalinstances of the remote network management platform.

One such service that the remote network management can provide is asecurity operations service through which the enterprise can managesecurity incidents that occur in the managed network and assess riskinvolved as appropriate. Security incidents can have varying severity,such as spam, unauthorized access attempts, malicious software, andphishing.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure provides an improvement to a remote networkmanagement platform that integrates security services provided to anenterprise's managed network by a third-party with security servicesprovided to the managed network by the remote network managementplatform. In particular, the remote network management platform canprovide a software application, such as a variant of a securityoperations application, that is configured to enable the enterprise topull, from a database associated with the third-party's securityservices, past alerts that have been triggered due to events in themanaged network. The software application can then use mapping data tomap fields that exist on the third-party side to corresponding fieldsdefined in accordance with the security services of the remote networkmanagement platform and create security incident records from the pastalerts.

Accordingly, a first example embodiment may involve requesting andreceiving, by a scoped software application, from an applicationdatabase associated with a third-party software application, alert rulesthat trigger alerts when associated events occur in a managed network.The scoped software application may be executable on a computing deviceof a computational instance of a remote network management platform. Thecomputational instance may be communicatively coupled and dedicated tothe managed network and may contain a security incident database. Themanaged network may contain one or more servers and the applicationdatabase. The third-party software application may be executable on theone or more servers. The application database may store, in fieldsdefined in accordance with the third-party software application: (i) thealert rules and (ii) past alerts that have been triggered by the alertrules.

The first example embodiment may also involve receiving, by the scopedsoftware application, input data representing selection of a set of thealert rules. The first example embodiment may also involve, based on theinput data, requesting and receiving, by the scoped softwareapplication, from the application database, a set of the past alertsthat have been triggered by the set of the alert rules. The firstexample embodiment may also involve, using mapping data stored withinthe computational instance, mapping, by the scoped software application,fields of the set of the past alerts to fields of a sample securityincident record without writing the sample security incident record tothe security incident database. The mapping data may define pairwiseassociations between the fields of the set of the past alerts and fieldsof the security incident records. The first example embodiment may alsoinvolve generating and providing for display, by the scoped softwareapplication, a representation of a graphical user interface, therepresentation comprising a preview region including the sample securityincident record. The first example embodiment may also involve, usingthe mapping data, creating, by the scoped software application, securityincident records that map to the set of the past alerts. The firstexample embodiment may also involve writing, by the scoped softwareapplication, to the security incident database, the security incidentrecords.

In a second example embodiment, an article of manufacture may include anon-transitory computer-readable medium, having stored thereon programinstructions that, upon execution by a computing system, cause thecomputing system to perform operations in accordance with the firstexample embodiment.

In a third example embodiment, a computing system may include at leastone processor, as well as memory and program instructions. The programinstructions may be stored in the memory, and upon execution by the atleast one processor, cause the computing system to perform operations inaccordance with the first example embodiment.

In a fourth example embodiment, a system may include various means forcarrying out each of the operations of the first example embodiment.

These as well as other embodiments, aspects, advantages, andalternatives will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the artby reading the following detailed description, with reference whereappropriate to the accompanying drawings. Further, this summary andother descriptions and figures provided herein are intended toillustrate embodiments by way of example only and, as such, thatnumerous variations are possible. For instance, structural elements andprocess steps can be rearranged, combined, distributed, eliminated, orotherwise changed, while remaining within the scope of the embodimentsas claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic drawing of a computing device, inaccordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates a schematic drawing of a server device cluster, inaccordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 3 depicts a remote network management architecture, in accordancewith example embodiments.

FIG. 4 depicts a communication environment involving a remote networkmanagement architecture, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 5A depicts another communication environment involving a remotenetwork management architecture, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 5B is a flow chart, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 6 illustrates a computing system for creating security incidentrecords, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 7A illustrates a GUI, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 7B illustrates a GUI, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 7C illustrates a GUI, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 7D illustrates a GUI, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 7E illustrates a GUI, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 7F illustrates a GUI, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart, in accordance with example embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Example methods, devices, and systems are described herein. It should beunderstood that the words “example” and “exemplary” are used herein tomean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any embodimentor feature described herein as being an “example” or “exemplary” is notnecessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over otherembodiments or features unless stated as such. Thus, other embodimentscan be utilized and other changes can be made without departing from thescope of the subject matter presented herein.

Accordingly, the example embodiments described herein are not meant tobe limiting. It will be readily understood that the aspects of thepresent disclosure, as generally described herein, and illustrated inthe figures, can be arranged, substituted, combined, separated, anddesigned in a wide variety of different configurations. For example, theseparation of features into “client” and “server” components may occurin a number of ways.

Further, unless context suggests otherwise, the features illustrated ineach of the figures may be used in combination with one another. Thus,the figures should be generally viewed as component aspects of one ormore overall embodiments, with the understanding that not allillustrated features are necessary for each embodiment.

Additionally, any enumeration of elements, blocks, or steps in thisspecification or the claims is for purposes of clarity. Thus, suchenumeration should not be interpreted to require or imply that theseelements, blocks, or steps adhere to a particular arrangement or arecarried out in a particular order.

I. INTRODUCTION

A large enterprise is a complex entity with many interrelatedoperations. Some of these are found across the enterprise, such as humanresources (HR), supply chain, information technology (IT), and finance.However, each enterprise also has its own unique operations that provideessential capabilities and/or create competitive advantages.

To support widely-implemented operations, enterprises typically useoff-the-shelf software applications, such as customer relationshipmanagement (CRM) and human capital management (HCM) packages. However,they may also need custom software applications to meet their own uniquerequirements. A large enterprise often has dozens or hundreds of thesecustom software applications. Nonetheless, the advantages provided bythe embodiments herein are not limited to large enterprises and may beapplicable to an enterprise, or any other type of organization, of anysize.

Many such software applications are developed by individual departmentswithin the enterprise. These range from simple spreadsheets tocustom-built software tools and databases. But the proliferation ofsiloed custom software applications has numerous disadvantages. Itnegatively impacts an enterprise's ability to run and grow itsoperations, innovate, and meet regulatory requirements. The enterprisemay find it difficult to integrate, streamline and enhance itsoperations due to lack of a single system that unifies its subsystemsand data.

To efficiently create custom applications, enterprises would benefitfrom a remotely-hosted application platform that eliminates unnecessarydevelopment complexity. The goal of such a platform would be to reducetime-consuming, repetitive application development tasks so thatsoftware engineers and individuals in other roles can focus ondeveloping unique, high-value features.

In order to achieve this goal, the concept of Application Platform as aService (aPaaS) is introduced, to intelligently automate workflowsthroughout the enterprise. An aPaaS system is hosted remotely from theenterprise, but may access data, applications, and services within theenterprise by way of secure connections. Such an aPaaS system may have anumber of advantageous capabilities and characteristics. Theseadvantages and characteristics may be able to improve the enterprise'soperations and workflow for IT, HR, CRM, customer service, applicationdevelopment, and security.

The aPaaS system may support development and execution ofmodel-view-controller (MVC) applications. MVC applications divide theirfunctionality into three interconnected parts (model, view, andcontroller) in order to isolate representations of information from themanner in which the information is presented to the user, therebyallowing for efficient code reuse and parallel development. Theseapplications may be web-based, and offer create, read, update, delete(CRUD) capabilities. This allows new applications to be built on acommon application infrastructure.

The aPaaS system may support standardized application components, suchas a standardized set of widgets for graphical user interface (GUI)development. In this way, applications built using the aPaaS system havea common look and feel. Other software components and modules may bestandardized as well. In some cases, this look and feel can be brandedor skinned with an enterprise's custom logos and/or color schemes.

The aPaaS system may support the ability to configure the behavior ofapplications using metadata. This allows application behaviors to berapidly adapted to meet specific needs. Such an approach reducesdevelopment time and increases flexibility. Further, the aPaaS systemmay support GUI tools that facilitate metadata creation and management,thus reducing errors in the metadata.

The aPaaS system may support clearly-defined interfaces betweenapplications, so that software developers can avoid unwantedinter-application dependencies. Thus, the aPaaS system may implement aservice layer in which persistent state information and other data isstored.

The aPaaS system may support a rich set of integration features so thatthe applications thereon can interact with legacy applications andthird-party applications. For instance, the aPaaS system may support acustom employee-onboarding system that integrates with legacy HR, IT,and accounting systems.

The aPaaS system may support enterprise-grade security. Furthermore,since the aPaaS system may be remotely hosted, it should also utilizesecurity procedures when it interacts with systems in the enterprise orthird-party networks and services hosted outside of the enterprise. Forexample, the aPaaS system may be configured to share data amongst theenterprise and other parties to detect and identify common securitythreats.

Other features, functionality, and advantages of an aPaaS system mayexist. This description is for purpose of example and is not intended tobe limiting.

As an example of the aPaaS development process, a software developer maybe tasked to create a new application using the aPaaS system. First, thedeveloper may define the data model, which specifies the types of datathat the application uses and the relationships therebetween. Then, viaa GUI of the aPaaS system, the developer enters (e.g., uploads) the datamodel. The aPaaS system automatically creates all of the correspondingdatabase tables, fields, and relationships, which can then be accessedvia an object-oriented services layer.

In addition, the aPaaS system can also build a fully-functional MVCapplication with client-side interfaces and server-side CRUD logic. Thisgenerated application may serve as the basis of further development forthe user. Advantageously, the developer does not have to spend a largeamount of time on basic application functionality. Further, since theapplication may be web-based, it can be accessed from anyInternet-enabled client device. Alternatively or additionally, a localcopy of the application may be able to be accessed, for instance, whenInternet service is not available.

The aPaaS system may also support a rich set of pre-definedfunctionality that can be added to applications. These features includesupport for searching, email, templating, workflow design, reporting,analytics, social media, scripting, mobile-friendly output, andcustomized GUIs.

The following embodiments describe architectural and functional aspectsof example aPaaS systems, as well as the features and advantagesthereof.

II. EXAMPLE COMPUTING DEVICES AND CLOUD-BASED COMPUTING ENVIRONMENTS

FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram exemplifying a computing device100, illustrating some of the components that could be included in acomputing device arranged to operate in accordance with the embodimentsherein. Computing device 100 could be a client device (e.g., a deviceactively operated by a user), a server device (e.g., a device thatprovides computational services to client devices), or some other typeof computational platform. Some server devices may operate as clientdevices from time to time in order to perform particular operations, andsome client devices may incorporate server features.

In this example, computing device 100 includes processor 102, memory104, network interface 106, and an input/output unit 108, all of whichmay be coupled by a system bus 110 or a similar mechanism. In someembodiments, computing device 100 may include other components and/orperipheral devices (e.g., detachable storage, printers, and so on).

Processor 102 may be one or more of any type of computer processingelement, such as a central processing unit (CPU), a co-processor (e.g.,a mathematics, graphics, or encryption co-processor), a digital signalprocessor (DSP), a network processor, and/or a form of integratedcircuit or controller that performs processor operations. In some cases,processor 102 may be one or more single-core processors. In other cases,processor 102 may be one or more multi-core processors with multipleindependent processing units. Processor 102 may also include registermemory for temporarily storing instructions being executed and relateddata, as well as cache memory for temporarily storing recently-usedinstructions and data.

Memory 104 may be any form of computer-usable memory, including but notlimited to random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), andnon-volatile memory (e.g., flash memory, hard disk drives, solid statedrives, compact discs (CDs), digital video discs (DVDs), and/or tapestorage). Thus, memory 104 represents both main memory units, as well aslong-term storage. Other types of memory may include biological memory.

Memory 104 may store program instructions and/or data on which programinstructions may operate. By way of example, memory 104 may store theseprogram instructions on a non-transitory, computer-readable medium, suchthat the instructions are executable by processor 102 to carry out anyof the methods, processes, or operations disclosed in this specificationor the accompanying drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, memory 104 may include firmware 104A, kernel 104B,and/or applications 104C. Firmware 104A may be program code used to bootor otherwise initiate some or all of computing device 100. Kernel 104Bmay be an operating system, including modules for memory management,scheduling and management of processes, input/output, and communication.Kernel 104B may also include device drivers that allow the operatingsystem to communicate with the hardware modules (e.g., memory units,networking interfaces, ports, and busses), of computing device 100.Applications 104C may be one or more user-space software programs, suchas web browsers or email clients, as well as any software libraries usedby these programs. Memory 104 may also store data used by these andother programs and applications.

Network interface 106 may take the form of one or more wirelineinterfaces, such as Ethernet (e.g., Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, andso on). Network interface 106 may also support communication over one ormore non-Ethernet media, such as coaxial cables or power lines, or overwide-area media, such as Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) ordigital subscriber line (DSL) technologies. Network interface 106 mayadditionally take the form of one or more wireless interfaces, such asIEEE 802.11 (Wifi), BLUETOOTH®, global positioning system (GPS), or awide-area wireless interface. However, other forms of physical layerinterfaces and other types of standard or proprietary communicationprotocols may be used over network interface 106. Furthermore, networkinterface 106 may comprise multiple physical interfaces. For instance,some embodiments of computing device 100 may include Ethernet,BLUETOOTH®, and Wifi interfaces.

Input/output unit 108 may facilitate user and peripheral deviceinteraction with computing device 100. Input/output unit 108 may includeone or more types of input devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, a touchscreen, and so on. Similarly, input/output unit 108 may include one ormore types of output devices, such as a screen, monitor, printer, and/orone or more light emitting diodes (LEDs). Additionally or alternatively,computing device 100 may communicate with other devices using auniversal serial bus (USB) or high-definition multimedia interface(HDMI) port interface, for example.

In some embodiments, one or more instances of computing device 100 maybe deployed to support an aPaaS architecture. The exact physicallocation, connectivity, and configuration of these computing devices maybe unknown and/or unimportant to client devices. Accordingly, thecomputing devices may be referred to as “cloud-based” devices that maybe housed at various remote data center locations.

FIG. 2 depicts a cloud-based server cluster 200 in accordance withexample embodiments. In FIG. 2, operations of a computing device (e.g.,computing device 100) may be distributed between server devices 202,data storage 204, and routers 206, all of which may be connected bylocal cluster network 208. The number of server devices 202, datastorages 204, and routers 206 in server cluster 200 may depend on thecomputing task(s) and/or applications assigned to server cluster 200.

For example, server devices 202 can be configured to perform variouscomputing tasks of computing device 100. Thus, computing tasks can bedistributed among one or more of server devices 202. To the extent thatthese computing tasks can be performed in parallel, such a distributionof tasks may reduce the total time to complete these tasks and return aresult. For purpose of simplicity, both server cluster 200 andindividual server devices 202 may be referred to as a “server device.”This nomenclature should be understood to imply that one or moredistinct server devices, data storage devices, and cluster routers maybe involved in server device operations.

Data storage 204 may be data storage arrays that include drive arraycontrollers configured to manage read and write access to groups of harddisk drives and/or solid state drives. The drive array controllers,alone or in conjunction with server devices 202, may also be configuredto manage backup or redundant copies of the data stored in data storage204 to protect against drive failures or other types of failures thatprevent one or more of server devices 202 from accessing units of datastorage 204. Other types of memory aside from drives may be used.

Routers 206 may include networking equipment configured to provideinternal and external communications for server cluster 200. Forexample, routers 206 may include one or more packet-switching and/orrouting devices (including switches and/or gateways) configured toprovide (i) network communications between server devices 202 and datastorage 204 via local cluster network 208, and/or (ii) networkcommunications between the server cluster 200 and other devices viacommunication link 210 to network 212.

Additionally, the configuration of routers 206 can be based at least inpart on the data communication requirements of server devices 202 anddata storage 204, the latency and throughput of the local clusternetwork 208, the latency, throughput, and cost of communication link210, and/or other factors that may contribute to the cost, speed,fault-tolerance, resiliency, efficiency and/or other design goals of thesystem architecture.

As a possible example, data storage 204 may include any form ofdatabase, such as a structured query language (SQL) database. Varioustypes of data structures may store the information in such a database,including but not limited to tables, arrays, lists, trees, and tuples.Furthermore, any databases in data storage 204 may be monolithic ordistributed across multiple physical devices.

Server devices 202 may be configured to transmit data to and receivedata from data storage 204. This transmission and retrieval may take theform of SQL queries or other types of database queries, and the outputof such queries, respectively. Additional text, images, video, and/oraudio may be included as well. Furthermore, server devices 202 mayorganize the received data into web page representations. Such arepresentation may take the form of a markup language, such as thehypertext markup language (HTML), the extensible markup language (XML),or some other standardized or proprietary format. Moreover, serverdevices 202 may have the capability of executing various types ofcomputerized scripting languages, such as but not limited to Perl,Python, PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), Active Server Pages (ASP),JavaScript, and so on. Computer program code written in these languagesmay facilitate the providing of web pages to client devices, as well asclient device interaction with the web pages.

III. EXAMPLE REMOTE NETWORK MANAGEMENT ARCHITECTURE

FIG. 3 depicts a remote network management architecture, in accordancewith example embodiments. This architecture includes three maincomponents, managed network 300, remote network management platform 320,and third-party networks 340, all connected by way of Internet 350.

Managed network 300 may be, for example, an enterprise network used byan entity for computing and communications tasks, as well as storage ofdata. Thus, managed network 300 may include client devices 302, serverdevices 304, routers 306, virtual machines 308, firewall 310, and/orproxy servers 312. Client devices 302 may be embodied by computingdevice 100, server devices 304 may be embodied by computing device 100or server cluster 200, and routers 306 may be any type of router,switch, or gateway.

Virtual machines 308 may be embodied by one or more of computing device100 or server cluster 200. In general, a virtual machine is an emulationof a computing system, and mimics the functionality (e.g., processor,memory, and communication resources) of a physical computer. Onephysical computing system, such as server cluster 200, may support up tothousands of individual virtual machines. In some embodiments, virtualmachines 308 may be managed by a centralized server device orapplication that facilitates allocation of physical computing resourcesto individual virtual machines, as well as performance and errorreporting. Enterprises often employ virtual machines in order toallocate computing resources in an efficient, as needed fashion.Providers of virtualized computing systems include VMWARE® andMICROSOFT®.

Firewall 310 may be one or more specialized routers or server devicesthat protect managed network 300 from unauthorized attempts to accessthe devices, applications, and services therein, while allowingauthorized communication that is initiated from managed network 300.Firewall 310 may also provide intrusion detection, web filtering, virusscanning, application-layer gateways, and other applications orservices. In some embodiments not shown in FIG. 3, managed network 300may include one or more virtual private network (VPN) gateways withwhich it communicates with remote network management platform 320 (seebelow).

Managed network 300 may also include one or more proxy servers 312. Anembodiment of proxy servers 312 may be a server device that facilitatescommunication and movement of data between managed network 300, remotenetwork management platform 320, and third-party networks 340. Inparticular, proxy servers 312 may be able to establish and maintainsecure communication sessions with one or more computational instancesof remote network management platform 320. By way of such a session,remote network management platform 320 may be able to discover andmanage aspects of the architecture and configuration of managed network300 and its components. Possibly with the assistance of proxy servers312, remote network management platform 320 may also be able to discoverand manage aspects of third-party networks 340 that are used by managednetwork 300.

Firewalls, such as firewall 310, typically deny all communicationsessions that are incoming by way of Internet 350, unless such a sessionwas ultimately initiated from behind the firewall (i.e., from a deviceon managed network 300) or the firewall has been explicitly configuredto support the session. By placing proxy servers 312 behind firewall 310(e.g., within managed network 300 and protected by firewall 310), proxyservers 312 may be able to initiate these communication sessions throughfirewall 310. Thus, firewall 310 might not have to be specificallyconfigured to support incoming sessions from remote network managementplatform 320, thereby avoiding potential security risks to managednetwork 300.

In some cases, managed network 300 may consist of a few devices and asmall number of networks. In other deployments, managed network 300 mayspan multiple physical locations and include hundreds of networks andhundreds of thousands of devices. Thus, the architecture depicted inFIG. 3 is capable of scaling up or down by orders of magnitude.

Furthermore, depending on the size, architecture, and connectivity ofmanaged network 300, a varying number of proxy servers 312 may bedeployed therein. For example, each one of proxy servers 312 may beresponsible for communicating with remote network management platform320 regarding a portion of managed network 300. Alternatively oradditionally, sets of two or more proxy servers may be assigned to sucha portion of managed network 300 for purposes of load balancing,redundancy, and/or high availability.

Remote network management platform 320 is a hosted environment thatprovides aPaaS services to users, particularly to the operators ofmanaged network 300. These services may take the form of web-basedportals, for instance. Thus, a user can securely access remote networkmanagement platform 320 from, for instance, client devices 302, orpotentially from a client device outside of managed network 300. By wayof the web-based portals, users may design, test, and deployapplications, generate reports, view analytics, and perform other tasks.

As shown in FIG. 3, remote network management platform 320 includes fourcomputational instances 322, 324, 326, and 328. Each of these instancesmay represent a set of web portals, services, and applications (e.g., awholly-functioning aPaaS system) available to a particular customer. Insome cases, a single customer may use multiple computational instances.For example, managed network 300 may be an enterprise customer of remotenetwork management platform 320, and may use computational instances322, 324, and 326. The reason for providing multiple instances to onecustomer is that the customer may wish to independently develop, test,and deploy its applications and services. Thus, computational instance322 may be dedicated to application development related to managednetwork 300, computational instance 324 may be dedicated to testingthese applications, and computational instance 326 may be dedicated tothe live operation of tested applications and services. A computationalinstance may also be referred to as a hosted instance, a remoteinstance, a customer instance, or by some other designation.

The multi-instance architecture of remote network management platform320 is in contrast to conventional multi-tenant architectures, overwhich multi-instance architectures have several advantages. Inmulti-tenant architectures, data from different customers (e.g.,enterprises) are comingled in a single database. While these customers'data are separate from one another, the separation is enforced by thesoftware that operates the single database. As a consequence, a securitybreach in this system may impact all customers' data, creatingadditional risk, especially for entities subject to governmental,healthcare, and/or financial regulation. Furthermore, any databaseoperations that impact one customer will likely impact all customerssharing that database. Thus, if there is an outage due to hardware orsoftware errors, this outage affects all such customers. Likewise, ifthe database is to be upgraded to meet the needs of one customer, itwill be unavailable to all customers during the upgrade process. Often,such maintenance windows will be long, due to the size of the shareddatabase.

In contrast, the multi-instance architecture provides each customer withits own database in a dedicated computing instance. This preventscomingling of customer data, and allows each instance to beindependently managed. For example, when one customer's instanceexperiences an outage due to errors or an upgrade, other computationalinstances are not impacted. Maintenance down time is limited because thedatabase only contains one customer's data. Further, the simpler designof the multi-instance architecture allows redundant copies of eachcustomer database and instance to be deployed in a geographicallydiverse fashion. This facilitates high availability, where the liveversion of the customer's instance can be moved when faults are detectedor maintenance is being performed.

In order to support multiple computational instances in an efficientfashion, remote network management platform 320 may implement aplurality of these instances on a single hardware platform. For example,when the aPaaS system is implemented on a server cluster such as servercluster 200, it may operate a virtual machine that dedicates varyingamounts of computational, storage, and communication resources toinstances. But full virtualization of server cluster 200 might not benecessary, and other mechanisms may be used to separate instances. Insome examples, each instance may have a dedicated account and one ormore dedicated databases on server cluster 200. Alternatively,computational instance 322 may span multiple physical devices.

In some cases, a single server cluster of remote network managementplatform 320 may support multiple independent enterprises. Furthermore,as described below, remote network management platform 320 may includemultiple server clusters deployed in geographically diverse data centersin order to facilitate load balancing, redundancy, and/or highavailability.

Third-party networks 340 may be remote server devices (e.g., a pluralityof server clusters such as server cluster 200) that can be used foroutsourced computational, data storage, communication, and servicehosting operations. These servers may be virtualized (i.e., the serversmay be virtual machines). Examples of third-party networks 340 mayinclude AMAZON WEB SERVICES® and MICROSOFT® Azure. Like remote networkmanagement platform 320, multiple server clusters supporting third-partynetworks 340 may be deployed at geographically diverse locations forpurposes of load balancing, redundancy, and/or high availability.

Managed network 300 may use one or more of third-party networks 340 todeploy applications and services to its clients and customers. Forinstance, if managed network 300 provides online music streamingservices, third-party networks 340 may store the music files and provideweb interface and streaming capabilities. In this way, the enterprise ofmanaged network 300 does not have to build and maintain its own serversfor these operations.

Remote network management platform 320 may include modules thatintegrate with third-party networks 340 to expose virtual machines andmanaged services therein to managed network 300. The modules may allowusers to request virtual resources and provide flexible reporting forthird-party networks 340. In order to establish this functionality, auser from managed network 300 might first establish an account withthird-party networks 340, and request a set of associated resources.Then, the user may enter the account information into the appropriatemodules of remote network management platform 320. These modules maythen automatically discover the manageable resources in the account, andalso provide reports related to usage, performance, and billing.

Internet 350 may represent a portion of the global Internet. However,Internet 350 may alternatively represent a different type of network,such as a private wide-area or local-area packet-switched network.

FIG. 4 further illustrates the communication environment between managednetwork 300 and computational instance 322, and introduces additionalfeatures and alternative embodiments. In FIG. 4, computational instance322 is replicated across data centers 400A and 400B. These data centersmay be geographically distant from one another, perhaps in differentcities or different countries. Each data center includes supportequipment that facilitates communication with managed network 300, aswell as remote users.

In data center 400A, network traffic to and from external devices flowseither through VPN gateway 402A or firewall 404A. VPN gateway 402A maybe peered with VPN gateway 412 of managed network 300 by way of asecurity protocol such as Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC) orTransport Layer Security (TLS). Firewall 404A may be configured to allowaccess from authorized users, such as user 414 and remote user 416, andto deny access to unauthorized users. By way of firewall 404A, theseusers may access computational instance 322, and possibly othercomputational instances. Load balancer 406A may be used to distributetraffic amongst one or more physical or virtual server devices that hostcomputational instance 322. Load balancer 406A may simplify user accessby hiding the internal configuration of data center 400A, (e.g.,computational instance 322) from client devices. For instance, ifcomputational instance 322 includes multiple physical or virtualcomputing devices that share access to multiple databases, load balancer406A may distribute network traffic and processing tasks across thesecomputing devices and databases so that no one computing device ordatabase is significantly busier than the others. In some embodiments,computational instance 322 may include VPN gateway 402A, firewall 404A,and load balancer 406A.

Data center 400B may include its own versions of the components in datacenter 400A. Thus, VPN gateway 402B, firewall 404B, and load balancer406B may perform the same or similar operations as VPN gateway 402A,firewall 404A, and load balancer 406A, respectively. Further, by way ofreal-time or near-real-time database replication and/or otheroperations, computational instance 322 may exist simultaneously in datacenters 400A and 400B.

Data centers 400A and 400B as shown in FIG. 4 may facilitate redundancyand high availability. In the configuration of FIG. 4, data center 400Ais active and data center 400B is passive. Thus, data center 400A isserving all traffic to and from managed network 300, while the versionof computational instance 322 in data center 400B is being updated innear-real-time. Other configurations, such as one in which both datacenters are active, may be supported.

Should data center 400A fail in some fashion or otherwise becomeunavailable to users, data center 400B can take over as the active datacenter. For example, domain name system (DNS) servers that associate adomain name of computational instance 322 with one or more InternetProtocol (IP) addresses of data center 400A may re-associate the domainname with one or more IP addresses of data center 400B. After thisre-association completes (which may take less than one second or severalseconds), users may access computational instance 322 by way of datacenter 400B.

FIG. 4 also illustrates a possible configuration of managed network 300.As noted above, proxy servers 312 and user 414 may access computationalinstance 322 through firewall 310. Proxy servers 312 may also accessconfiguration items 410. In FIG. 4, configuration items 410 may refer toany or all of client devices 302, server devices 304, routers 306, andvirtual machines 308, any applications or services executing thereon, aswell as relationships between devices, applications, and services. Thus,the term “configuration items” may be shorthand for any physical orvirtual device, or any application or service remotely discoverable ormanaged by computational instance 322, or relationships betweendiscovered devices, applications, and services. Configuration items maybe represented in a configuration management database (CMDB) ofcomputational instance 322.

As noted above, VPN gateway 412 may provide a dedicated VPN to VPNgateway 402A. Such a VPN may be helpful when there is a significantamount of traffic between managed network 300 and computational instance322, or security policies otherwise suggest or require use of a VPNbetween these sites. In some embodiments, any device in managed network300 and/or computational instance 322 that directly communicates via theVPN is assigned a public IP address. Other devices in managed network300 and/or computational instance 322 may be assigned private IPaddresses (e.g., IP addresses selected from the 10.0.0.0-10.255.255.255or 192.168.0.0-192.168.255.255 ranges, represented in shorthand assubnets 10.0.0.0/8 and 192.168.0.0/16, respectively).

IV. EXAMPLE DEVICE, APPLICATION, AND SERVICE DISCOVERY

In order for remote network management platform 320 to administer thedevices, applications, and services of managed network 300, remotenetwork management platform 320 may first determine what devices arepresent in managed network 300, the configurations and operationalstatuses of these devices, and the applications and services provided bythe devices, and well as the relationships between discovered devices,applications, and services. As noted above, each device, application,service, and relationship may be referred to as a configuration item.The process of defining configuration items within managed network 300is referred to as discovery, and may be facilitated at least in part byproxy servers 312.

For purpose of the embodiments herein, an “application” may refer to oneor more processes, threads, programs, client modules, server modules, orany other software that executes on a device or group of devices. A“service” may refer to a high-level capability provided by multipleapplications executing on one or more devices working in conjunctionwith one another. For example, a high-level web service may involvemultiple web application server threads executing on one device andaccessing information from a database application that executes onanother device.

FIG. 5A provides a logical depiction of how configuration items can bediscovered, as well as how information related to discoveredconfiguration items can be stored. For sake of simplicity, remotenetwork management platform 320, third-party networks 340, and Internet350 are not shown.

In FIG. 5A, CMDB 500 and task list 502 are stored within computationalinstance 322. Computational instance 322 may transmit discovery commandsto proxy servers 312. In response, proxy servers 312 may transmit probesto various devices, applications, and services in managed network 300.These devices, applications, and services may transmit responses toproxy servers 312, and proxy servers 312 may then provide informationregarding discovered configuration items to CMDB 500 for storagetherein. Configuration items stored in CMDB 500 represent theenvironment of managed network 300.

Task list 502 represents a list of activities that proxy servers 312 areto perform on behalf of computational instance 322. As discovery takesplace, task list 502 is populated. Proxy servers 312 repeatedly querytask list 502, obtain the next task therein, and perform this task untiltask list 502 is empty or another stopping condition has been reached.

To facilitate discovery, proxy servers 312 may be configured withinformation regarding one or more subnets in managed network 300 thatare reachable by way of proxy servers 312. For instance, proxy servers312 may be given the IP address range 192.168.0/24 as a subnet. Then,computational instance 322 may store this information in CMDB 500 andplace tasks in task list 502 for discovery of devices at each of theseaddresses.

FIG. 5A also depicts devices, applications, and services in managednetwork 300 as configuration items 504, 506, 508, 510, and 512. As notedabove, these configuration items represent a set of physical and/orvirtual devices (e.g., client devices, server devices, routers, orvirtual machines), applications executing thereon (e.g., web servers,email servers, databases, or storage arrays), relationshipstherebetween, as well as services that involve multiple individualconfiguration items.

Placing the tasks in task list 502 may trigger or otherwise cause proxyservers 312 to begin discovery. Alternatively or additionally, discoverymay be manually triggered or automatically triggered based on triggeringevents (e.g., discovery may automatically begin once per day at aparticular time).

In general, discovery may proceed in four logical phases: scanning,classification, identification, and exploration. Each phase of discoveryinvolves various types of probe messages being transmitted by proxyservers 312 to one or more devices in managed network 300. The responsesto these probes may be received and processed by proxy servers 312, andrepresentations thereof may be transmitted to CMDB 500. Thus, each phasecan result in more configuration items being discovered and stored inCMDB 500.

In the scanning phase, proxy servers 312 may probe each IP address inthe specified range of IP addresses for open Transmission ControlProtocol (TCP) and/or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports to determinethe general type of device. The presence of such open ports at an IPaddress may indicate that a particular application is operating on thedevice that is assigned the IP address, which in turn may identify theoperating system used by the device. For example, if TCP port 135 isopen, then the device is likely executing a WINDOWS® operating system.Similarly, if TCP port 22 is open, then the device is likely executing aUNIX® operating system, such as LINUX®. If UDP port 161 is open, thenthe device may be able to be further identified through the SimpleNetwork Management Protocol (SNMP). Other possibilities exist. Once thepresence of a device at a particular IP address and its open ports havebeen discovered, these configuration items are saved in CMDB 500.

In the classification phase, proxy servers 312 may further probe eachdiscovered device to determine the version of its operating system. Theprobes used for a particular device are based on information gatheredabout the devices during the scanning phase. For example, if a device isfound with TCP port 22 open, a set of UNIX®-specific probes may be used.Likewise, if a device is found with TCP port 135 open, a set ofWINDOWS®-specific probes may be used. For either case, an appropriateset of tasks may be placed in task list 502 for proxy servers 312 tocarry out. These tasks may result in proxy servers 312 logging on, orotherwise accessing information from the particular device. Forinstance, if TCP port 22 is open, proxy servers 312 may be instructed toinitiate a Secure Shell (SSH) connection to the particular device andobtain information about the operating system thereon from particularlocations in the file system. Based on this information, the operatingsystem may be determined. As an example, a UNIX® device with TCP port 22open may be classified as AIX®, HPUX, LINUX®, MACOS®, or SOLARIS®. Thisclassification information may be stored as one or more configurationitems in CMDB 500.

In the identification phase, proxy servers 312 may determine specificdetails about a classified device. The probes used during this phase maybe based on information gathered about the particular devices during theclassification phase. For example, if a device was classified as LINUX®,a set of LINUX®-specific probes may be used. Likewise if a device wasclassified as WINDOWS® 2012, as a set of WINDOWS®-2012-specific probesmay be used. As was the case for the classification phase, anappropriate set of tasks may be placed in task list 502 for proxyservers 312 to carry out. These tasks may result in proxy servers 312reading information from the particular device, such as basicinput/output system (BIOS) information, serial numbers, networkinterface information, media access control address(es) assigned tothese network interface(s), IP address(es) used by the particular deviceand so on. This identification information may be stored as one or moreconfiguration items in CMDB 500.

In the exploration phase, proxy servers 312 may determine furtherdetails about the operational state of a classified device. The probesused during this phase may be based on information gathered about theparticular devices during the classification phase and/or theidentification phase. Again, an appropriate set of tasks may be placedin task list 502 for proxy servers 312 to carry out. These tasks mayresult in proxy servers 312 reading additional information from theparticular device, such as processor information, memory information,lists of running processes (applications), and so on. Once more, thediscovered information may be stored as one or more configuration itemsin CMDB 500.

Running discovery on a network device, such as a router, may utilizeSNMP. Instead of or in addition to determining a list of runningprocesses or other application-related information, discovery maydetermine additional subnets known to the router and the operationalstate of the router's network interfaces (e.g., active, inactive, queuelength, number of packets dropped, etc.). The IP addresses of theadditional subnets may be candidates for further discovery procedures.Thus, discovery may progress iteratively or recursively.

Once discovery completes, a snapshot representation of each discovereddevice, application, and service is available in CMDB 500. For example,after discovery, operating system version, hardware configuration andnetwork configuration details for client devices, server devices, androuters in managed network 300, as well as applications executingthereon, may be stored. This collected information may be presented to auser in various ways to allow the user to view the hardware compositionand operational status of devices, as well as the characteristics ofservices that span multiple devices and applications.

Furthermore, CMDB 500 may include entries regarding dependencies andrelationships between configuration items. More specifically, anapplication that is executing on a particular server device, as well asthe services that rely on this application, may be represented as suchin CMDB 500. For instance, suppose that a database application isexecuting on a server device, and that this database application is usedby a new employee onboarding service as well as a payroll service. Thus,if the server device is taken out of operation for maintenance, it isclear that the employee onboarding service and payroll service will beimpacted. Likewise, the dependencies and relationships betweenconfiguration items may be able to represent the services impacted whena particular router fails.

In general, dependencies and relationships between configuration itemsmay be displayed on a web-based interface and represented in ahierarchical fashion. Thus, adding, changing, or removing suchdependencies and relationships may be accomplished by way of thisinterface.

Furthermore, users from managed network 300 may develop workflows thatallow certain coordinated activities to take place across multiplediscovered devices. For instance, an IT workflow might allow the user tochange the common administrator password to all discovered LINUX®devices in single operation.

In order for discovery to take place in the manner described above,proxy servers 312, CMDB 500, and/or one or more credential stores may beconfigured with credentials for one or more of the devices to bediscovered. Credentials may include any type of information needed inorder to access the devices. These may include userid/password pairs,certificates, and so on. In some embodiments, these credentials may bestored in encrypted fields of CMDB 500. Proxy servers 312 may containthe decryption key for the credentials so that proxy servers 312 can usethese credentials to log on to or otherwise access devices beingdiscovered.

The discovery process is depicted as a flow chart in FIG. 5B. At block520, the task list in the computational instance is populated, forinstance, with a range of IP addresses. At block 522, the scanning phasetakes place. Thus, the proxy servers probe the IP addresses for devicesusing these IP addresses, and attempt to determine the operating systemsthat are executing on these devices. At block 524, the classificationphase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determine the operatingsystem version of the discovered devices. At block 526, theidentification phase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determinethe hardware and/or software configuration of the discovered devices. Atblock 528, the exploration phase takes place. The proxy servers attemptto determine the operational state and applications executing on thediscovered devices. At block 530, further editing of the configurationitems representing the discovered devices and applications may takeplace. This editing may be automated and/or manual in nature.

The blocks represented in FIG. 5B are for purpose of example. Discoverymay be a highly configurable procedure that can have more or fewerphases, and the operations of each phase may vary. In some cases, one ormore phases may be customized, or may otherwise deviate from theexemplary descriptions above.

V. EXAMPLE CREATION OF SECURITY INCIDENT RECORDS

In some scenarios, the enterprise may install, on one or more servers inmanaged network 300, third-party software that is executable on theserver(s) and configured to help protect managed network 300 fromsecurity threats, such as malicious software and cyber-attacks (e.g.,denial-of-service attacks or phishing). To facilitate this, thethird-party software can be configured to create alert rules which inturn trigger alerts that notify the enterprise of events that occur inmanaged network 300—particularly events that are indicative of potential(e.g., suspected) and confirmed security threats. An alert rule caninclude data that defines one or more actions to take when one or moreevents occur, where at least one such action includes triggering analert. The third-party software may be configured to store both thealerts and the alert rules in an application database of managed network300 that is associated with the third-party software.

Generally, an “event” refers to an occurrence in managed network 300that is associated with an operation (or operations) performed by atleast one computing device and/or at least one software application ofmanaged network 300. For example, an event can involve a computingdevice attempting to access another computing device of managed network300, a computing device receiving an email, or an error message beinggenerated when a computing device attempts to log into a server (e.g., amessage indicating that a connection to the server has been denied),among other possibilities.

Alert rules can be created in various ways. For example, the third-partysoftware can interface with various computing devices of managed network300, as well as with various firewalls (e.g., firewall 310), antivirussoftware, and/or other hardware or software of managed network 300.Through these interfaces, the third-party software can gather andmaintain, in the application database associated with the third-partysoftware, event data representing various events that have occurred inmanaged network 300, such as those described above. The third-partysoftware can then analyze the events and generate an alert rule based onthe analysis. For example, the third-party software can be configured todetermine that a set of one or more events that have occurred in managednetwork 300 are indicative of a security threat and, in response to thatdetermination, create an alert rule associated with the set of events.Thus, when one or more events in the set of events occurs, the alertrule triggers an alert. Additionally or alternatively, the third-partysoftware can be configured to enable an enterprise to manually configurean alert rule. In some implementations of the third-party software, analert rule might specify that all events in a set of events must occurin order for the alert to be triggered. Alternatively, the alert rulemight specify that only one or more events of the set of events needoccur in order for the alert to be triggered. Further, in somescenarios, the same event might trigger multiple different alerts.

The event data may include a variety of information that enables thethird-party software to analyze the events and determine whether analert rule should be created. For example, the event data can includesource/destination IP addresses, hostnames, usernames, identifiers ofemail attachments (e.g., file names), and/or software identifiersinvolved in an event, as well as a date/time at which the eventoccurred. Further, when the third-party software or other devices withinmanaged network 300 analyze message content (e.g., email messages) todetect spam, viruses, and the like, the results of the analysis oranalyses can be included as event data. Other examples of event data arepossible as well.

As an example of how an alert rule is created, consider the followingscenario. The third-party software may detect a first event in which acomputing device unsuccessfully attempted to access a server and anerror message was generated as a result. A few seconds later, thethird-party software may detect a second event in which the computingdevice again unsuccessfully attempted to access the server and anothererror message was generated as a result. The third-party software canstore event data representing the two events and can then analyze thetwo events. For example, based on the occurrence of successive accesserrors related to the computing device, the third-party software mightcreate an alert rule that triggers an alert when a single computingdevice's attempts to access the server result in two or more successiveaccess errors. As another example, consider a scenario in which thethird-party software detects that one or more internal risk managementaudits in managed network 300 have failed. In this scenario, thethird-party software may create an alert rule that triggers an alertwhen one or more of such audits fail. Other examples are possible aswell.

When an alert is triggered, the third-party software may store, in theapplication database and in fields defined in accordance with thethird-party software (e.g., fields defined in accordance with a datamodel for the third-party software), any event data that is related tothe alert. For example, when an alert is triggered by the alert ruledescribed above for successive access errors, the third-party softwaremay store, in various fields of the application database, an IP addressof the computing device that was attempting to access the server, aserver identifier, a username being used to access the server, and/or adata/time of each attempt, among other possible information. In someimplementations, the third-party software may notify a user or usersthat the alert has been triggered. For example, the third-party softwaremay notify the user(s) by way of a text message, email, and/or phonecall.

One function of remote network management platform 320 can be to providesecurity operations for enterprises. As such, remote network managementplatform 320 may provide its own services for managing securityincidents as well. For example, remote network management platform 320can provide a security operations software application through which anauthorized user (e.g., a security administrator or agent tasked withresolving security incidents) can create and store, within a securityincident database, a security incident record that includes variousfields of information defined in accordance with a data model for remotenetwork management platform 320. These fields can include data thatidentifies or describes the security incident, its status (e.g., open,closed), a priority level for the security incident (e.g., low, medium,high), an impact level on the enterprise (e.g., critical, non-critical),computing devices and/or user profiles involved in and affected by thesecurity incident, and/or the individual or team of individuals to whichthe security incident record is assigned for tracking and resolution,among other possibilities.

The present disclosure provides an improvement to remote networkmanagement platform 320 that integrates the security services providedby third-party software with security services provided by remotenetwork management platform 320. In particular, a computational instanceof remote network management platform 320, such as computationalinstance 322, can run a software application that is configured toenable the enterprise to pull, from the third-party softwareapplication's database, past alerts that have been triggered withrespect to managed network 300 and create security incident records fromthose alerts. Because the fields of the past alerts may be differentfrom the security incident record fields that are defined in accordancewith remote network management platform 320, the disclosed softwareapplication can provide and/or enable the enterprise to create mappingdata that maps the fields of the past alerts to the security incidentrecord fields.

Herein, with respect to a given moment in time where the softwareapplication pulls past alerts, the term “past alert” can refer to anyalert that has been triggered before that moment in time.

The disclosed software application described above may be referred toherein as a “scoped” application. As a general matter, a scopedapplication may be an application developed using a particularapplication programming interface (API) provided by remote networkmanagement platform 320 and customized for a particular purpose. Ascoped application can be developed and/or customized by an entity thatcontrols remote network management platform 320 or by a customer ofremote network management platform 320. Further, a scoped applicationmay have access rules, perhaps in the form of an access control list(ACL), that define which users (e.g., enterprises, or employees thereof,with an administrative role) and/or other applications are allowed toaccess the scoped application and/or its data.

In the context of the present disclosure, the disclosed softwareapplication may be a scoped security operations application that isdesigned to create and write to the security incident database securityincident records that are based on past alerts triggered by alert rulescreated by the third-party software. To facilitate this, the third-partysoftware can provide an API and the scoped application may be designedto interface with a proxy server (e.g., one of proxy servers 312) andinstruct the proxy server to call the third-party software's API torequest the past alerts and to facilitate other operations describedherein.

Implementations of this disclosure provide technological improvementsthat are particular to computer networks and computing systems. Forexample, managed networks—particularly large managed networks withhundreds or thousands of computing devices—can cause tens or hundreds ofsecurity-related notifications to occur each day, at least some of whichmay involve serious security threats. For at least this reason, it isdesirable for such a managed network to have in place a mechanism forreliably and efficiently managing and resolving security incidents. Theremote network management platform 320 described herein provides suchimprovements.

Computing system-specific technological problems, such as inefficiency,unreliability, and complexity that can accompany the use of computertechnology in data management (e.g., consolidation and datatransformation) and risk management (e.g., assessing security threatsand determining the impact thereof), can be wholly or partially solvedby the implementations of this disclosure. For example, implementationsof this disclosure provide a unified source for security incidentmanagement and remediation within remote network management platform320. Thus, rather than having to first refer to third-party softwarealert data and then make risk management decisions or manually createcorresponding security incident records on the remote network managementplatform side, the enterprise can use the scoped application toautomatically pull desired alerts, automatically create, write, and viewcorresponding security incident records (or at least fill out someportion of a security incident record using an alert, so the enterprisecan then efficiently fill in other portions with supplementalinformation to complete the security incident record), and automaticallyclose alerts when their corresponding security incident records areclosed. The scoped application can also advantageously enable theenterprise to customize security incident record creation, particularlyby enabling the enterprise to specify which past alerts are pulled andhow the past alert fields are mapped to security incident record fields.Further, these and other aspects of the disclosure enable the enterpriseto gain additional insight into security incidents, reduce the amount oftime taken to assess and act on security incidents, and make moreinformed decisions for acting on security incidents.

These and other improvements are described in more detail below, thoughthe operations described below are for purposes of example and thatimplementations may provide other improvements as well.

FIG. 6 illustrates a computing system for creating security incidentrecords, in accordance with example embodiments. In particular, FIG. 6illustrates computational instance 322, which includes scopedapplication 600 and security incident database 602. Scoped application600 can be configured to perform one or more of the operations describedherein. Security incident database 602 can store a variety of securityincident records associated with managed network 300, including thosecreated from past alerts. The security incident records stored atsecurity incident database 602 can include fields defined in accordancewith remote network management platform 320. For example, the fields canbe defined in accordance with a data model that has been defined byremote network management platform 320 for storing data—particularlysecurity incident records—in security incident database 602.

FIG. 6 also illustrates computational instance 322 in communication withmanaged network 300—particularly with one or more servers 604 of managednetwork 300, which is/are in turn in communication with applicationdatabase 606. Further, server(s) 604 include third-party application 608(referred to above as “third-party software”), which is executable onserver(s) 604. Server(s) 604 can include server devices 304 describedabove, or can be additional servers separate from server devices 304.

In line with the discussion above, application database 606 can store,in fields defined in accordance with third-party software application608 (e.g., defined in accordance with a data model that third-partyapplication 608 uses for storing data), past alerts that have beentriggered in managed network 300 and alert rules that have triggered thepast alerts. In some examples, application database 606 can additionallystore alert rules that are defined but have not yet triggered an alert,event data, and any additional data or metadata associated with the pastalerts and alert rules.

An example process for creating security incident records from alertswill now be described in more detail with respect to FIG. 6. Scopedapplication 600 can be configured to provide representations ofgraphical user interfaces (GUIs) that can be used to facilitate variousoperations described herein. Thus, the process will also be describedwith respect to FIGS. 7A, 7B, 7C, 7D, 7E, and 7F, each of whichillustrate an example GUI.

In some implementations, scoped application 600 can provide for displaya representation of a graphical user interface (GUI) that enables theenterprise (e.g., a user of the enterprise with administratorprivileges) to create an alert profile that defines for the enterprisewhich of the alert rules to use for creating security incident recordsand how fields of past alerts triggered by those alert rules will bemapped to security incident record fields. Multiple different alertprofiles can be created for the enterprise using scoped application 600.The ability to create alert profiles can be advantageous in that itenables the enterprise to create, customize, and then perhaps makechanges to enterprise-specific preferences for how security incidentrecords are created. For example, some alerts can be triggered moreoften in some departments of the enterprise than in others, and thus,one or more alert profiles can be created and tailored toward the needsof one department, and one or more other alert profiles can be createdand tailored toward the needs of another department. Other examples arepossible as well.

FIG. 7A illustrates an example GUI 700 for creating an alert profile.GUI 700 is a first step in a multi-step process for creating an alertprofile. The steps in the multi-step process are described herein asbeing performed in a particular order, and thus GUIs supportingperformance of these steps are also performed in the particular order.However, in other implementations, steps in the multi-step process canbe performed in a different order, and thus the associated GUIs can bedisplayed in a different order. Steps/GUIs can also be added or omitted.

As shown, GUI 700 enables the enterprise to enter a name for the alertprofile, a source (e.g., an identifier of one or more servers, such asserver(s) 604, with which scoped application 600 will communicate toretrieve alert rules, past alerts, and/or other data from applicationdatabase 606 or another database), a short description of the alertprofile, and an order for the alert profile. The “Order” field, inparticular, can enable a user to enter a number or other representationof a priority order in which the alert profile should be used to createsecurity incident records. For example, scoped application 600 can beconfigured to create security incident records using an alert profilewith a lower order (e.g., 10) before creating security incident recordsusing an alert profile with a higher order (e.g., 100). Other examplesof priority order values are possible as well.

The GUI 700 also enables the enterprise to select whether the alertprofile is active or not. When an alert profile is active, scopedapplication 600 may repeatedly request and retrieve alert rules and pastalerts, and create security incident records, in accordance with thealert profile. Whereas, when an alert profile is inactive, scopedapplication 600 can refrain from taking such actions. Further, GUI 700also provides a selectable link for continuing to the next step of themulti-step process for creating the alert profile. When this link (i.e.,the “Continue” button) is selected, scoped application 600 can generateand provide another GUI (e.g., GUI 702, shown in FIG. 7B) for performinganother operation of the disclosed process, such as selecting alertrules for which scoped application 600 should request associated alerts,as discussed in more detail below.

In the disclosed process, scoped application 600 can request and receivealert rules from application database 606. To facilitate this, scopedapplication 600 transmit a request message or a series of requestmessages to third-party application 608 that request some or all of thealert rules currently stored in application database 606. In someimplementations, scoped application 600 can request and receive thealert rules automatically before any alert profile is created or at somepoint after an alert profile is created (e.g., in response to receivinginput data representing a command to retrieve some or all of the currentalert rules from application database 606). A given alert rule of thealert rules can be received in the form of data identifying the alertrule, such as an alphanumeric identifier of the alert rule or any otheridentifying data. Other data can be included with an alert rule as well,such as a short description of the alert rule (e.g., “Denial-of-ServiceAttack”).

Scoped application 600 can then receive user input data representingselection of a set of the alert rules. To facilitate this, scopedapplication 600 can provide a GUI containing an alert rule selectionregion for enabling the enterprise to select the set of alert rules. Assuch, the input data can take the form of a command provided via the GUIor another input device of the computing device on which the enterpriseis running scoped application 600.

FIG. 7B illustrates an example of such a GUI. In particular, GUI 702 isa second step in the multi-step process for creating the alert profile.At the top of GUI 702, the name and source of the alert profile areshown. GUI 702 also contains an alert rule selection region 704 in whichthe enterprise can view and search through a list of available alertrules, each identified by a short description of the alert rule. Fromthis list, the enterprise can select a set of one or more alert rulesfor which scoped application 600 should pull associated past alerts fromapplication database 606. By providing a searchable list such as this,the enterprise can quickly find and select alert rules.

Further, GUI 702 also provides a selectable link for continuing to thenext step of the multi-step process for creating the alert profile, anda selectable link for returning to the previous step of the multi-stepprocess. When the selectable link for continuing (i.e., the “Continue”button) is selected, scoped application 600 can generate and provideanother GUI (e.g., GUI 706, shown in FIG. 7C) for performing yet anotheroperation of the disclosed process, such as defining mapping data forcreating security incident records, as discussed in more detail below.When the selectable link for returning to the previous step (i.e., the“Previous” button, to the left of the “Continue” button) is selected,scoped application 600 can generate and provide the previous GUI, GUI700.

Although GUI 702 is dedicated to selecting alert rules, in otherimplementations, scoped application 600 can provide a GUI that combinesan alert rule selection region with one or more other regions describedherein.

Based on the input data, scoped application 600 can request and receive,from application database 606, a set of the past alerts that have beentriggered by the set of the alert rules. For example, scoped application600 can transmit a request message or a series of request messages tothird-party application 608 that request the set of the past alerts.Each such request can include an identifier of at least one alert ruleof the selected set of alert rules. Third-party application 608 can thenuse the identifier(s) to retrieve, from application database 606, thecorresponding past alert(s) that were triggered by the identified alertrule(s) and send them the past alert(s) back to scoped application 600.A past alert of the set of past alerts can be received in the form ofdata identifying the past alert, such as an alphanumeric identifier ofthe past alert or any other identifying data. Other data can be includedwith a past alert as well, such as an identifier of the alert rule thattriggered the past alert, a time at which the past alert was triggered(e.g., a date and time of day at which the past alert was triggered), anidentifier of an alert rule that triggered the past alert, a status ofthe past alert (e.g., New, Opened, Closed, False Alarm), and a severityrating of the past alert (e.g., low, medium, high).

In some implementations, for a given past alert of the set of pastalerts, scoped application 600 can also request and receive event datarepresenting one or more events that have occurred in managed network300 and contributed to triggering the past alert. Within examples,scoped application 600 can receive the event data along with the pastalert. Within other examples, once a past alert is received, scopedapplication 600 can extract an identifier for the past alert and use theidentifier to then request and receive event data associated with thepast alert. Third-party application 608 can then use the identifier toretrieve, from application database 606, the corresponding event datafor the past alert and send the event data back to scoped application600.

As discussed above, the event data can include various data associatedwith one or more events. These one or more events can include eventsthat were involved in creating the alert rule that triggered the pastalert for which the event data is being retrieved. As noted above, theevent data can include source/destination IP addresses, hostnames,usernames, identifiers of email attachments (e.g., file names), and/orsoftware identifiers involved in an event, as well as a date/time atwhich the event occurred, among other possible information.

The event data can also include a classification (e.g., suspiciousactivity or malware) of the past alert with which the event data isassociated. In some examples, the classification of the past alert cantake the same form as the description of the alert rule that triggeredthe past alert. In other examples, the classification of the past alertand the description of the alert rule can take different forms. Forinstance, the description of the alert rule may be more specific thanthe classification of the past alert. Other examples are possible aswell. As an example, a past alert may have been triggered by an alertrule for simultaneous VPN usage by a single user from multiple differentlocations (i.e., different IP addresses). Event data for this past alertcan include, for example, a username of the user, a first IP address, atime at which the user logged into the VPN at the first IP address, asecond IP address, and a time at which the user logged into the VPN atthe second IP address. Other examples are possible as well. Event datacan be valuable to have stored in security incident database 602 andmapped to security incident record fields because it can enable theenterprise to further investigate the cause of the past alert (andcorresponding security incident) without having to request additionalinformation from application database 606. This is another reason why aunified source for risk/incident management is advantageous.

When computational instance 322 receives past alerts, alert rules, eventdata, etc., that information can be stored in a database accessible toscoped application 600 for use in creating security incident records.For example, the received information can be stored in security incidentdatabase 602 and/or in another database.

Any data described herein that is associated with past alerts and alertrules on the third-party side (e.g., alert or alert rule identifiers,severity rating, alert status, event data, etc.), can be contained incorresponding fields defined in accordance with third-party application608 as noted above. Because these fields differ from fields for securityincident records on the remote network management platform side, scopedapplication 600 can provide the enterprise with the ability to usemapping data that, as a general matter, maps fields on the third-partyside to fields on the remote network management platform side. Tofacilitate this, the mapping data defines pairwise associations betweenfields of the set of the past alerts and fields of security incidentrecords.

The fields of the set of past alerts can include any one or more of thefields described above. Examples of fields of security incident recordscan include: (i) a time at which a security incident record was created(e.g., a date and time of day at which the security incident record wascreated), (ii) an identifier of the security incident record, (iii) anidentifier of a computing device with which the security incident recordis associated (e.g., a type of configuration item or identifier of theconfiguration item impacted by a security incident, such as one or moreof client devices 302, routers 306, virtual machines 308, etc.), (iv) anidentifier of a user with which the security incident record isassociated, (v) a status of the security incident record (e.g., open,closed, cancelled, draft), (vi) a description of a security incidentwith which the security incident record is associated, (vii) a prioritylevel of the security incident record (e.g., on a scale of 1-5, where 1is the highest and 5 is the lowest), (viii) a category of the securityincident record (e.g., phishing), (xi) a subcategory of the securityincident record (e.g., for a category of “Phishing,” a subcategory maybe “Scan email activity,” and for a category of “Equipment Loss,” asubcategory may be “Stolen equipment”), (x) an enterprise impact ratingassociated with the security incident record, (xi) a risk score of thesecurity incident record (e.g., a number or other representation of anexpected negative impact the security incident has on one or morecomputing devices of managed network 300), and (xii) a source of thesecurity incident (e.g., an identifier of the source of the securityincident, such as a phone call, email, or network monitoring), amongother possibilities.

Scoped application 600 can be configured to provide predefined mappingdata, such as mapping data defined by an entity that controls remotenetwork management platform 320. Additionally or alternatively, scopedapplication 600 can be configured to provide the enterprise with theability to create and store, in a database associated with computationalinstance 322 (e.g., security incident database 602), new mapping data.Scoped application 600 can be configured to provide the enterprise withthe ability to edit existing mapping data as well. To facilitate this,scoped application 600 can provide a GUI containing a mapping region forenabling the enterprise to (i) select fields of the set of the pastalerts, (ii) select fields of the security incident records to which toassociate to the fields of the set of the past alerts, and (iii)generate mapping data based on the selections. Scoped application 600can receive input data representing each selection and the generation ofthe mapping data.

FIG. 7C illustrates an example of such a GUI. In particular, GUI 706 isa third step in the multi-step process for creating the alert profile.GUI 706 includes an example form that a mapping region might take.Although only mapping region 708 is shown in GUI 706, in otherimplementations, scoped application 600 can provide a GUI that combinesthe mapping region with one or more other regions described herein.

As shown, the left side of mapping region 708 enables the enterprise touse identifiers of the set of the past alerts to search for a subset ofthe set of the past alerts and, for each past alert of the subset, viewvarious fields. For example, a user can enter alert identifiers in a boxto the left of the “Pull Alerts” button, then select the “Pull Alerts”button to search for the past alerts having those identifiers. When asearch is performed, not all fields may contain values. Regardless, theright side of mapping region 708 enables the enterprise to selectsecurity incident record fields to which to map the fields from the leftside of mapping region 708. The right side of mapping region 708includes two columns: a column labelled “Input Expression” and a columnlabelled “Security Incident Field.” Boxes in the “Input Expression”column can display a string that represents which past alert field (orfields) are mapped to the corresponding security incident record fieldin the “Security Incident Field” column. Scoped application 600 can thenevaluate the strings in the “Input Expression” boxes to determine how todisplay the past alert field data in the corresponding security incidentrecord field.

GUI 706 can enable the enterprise to associate the past alert fieldswith the security incident record fields in various ways. For example,the user can click on an icon for a past alert field, such as icon 710,and drag the icon to one of the boxes in the “Input Expression” columnon the right side of mapping region 708. This may trigger scopedapplication 700 to display, in the “Input Expression” box, a string thatexpresses the past alert field represented by icon 710. The enterprisecan then select, from a drop-down menu, a security incident record fieldto map to the past alert field represented by icon 710. Additionally oralternatively, the user can enter text in the “Input Expression” boxthat identifies the past alert field. In some implementations, the usercan enter any desired text in an “Input Expression” box. As shown, forexample, using the “Input Expression” box, the enterprise can set asecurity incident record field to contain information that combinesenterprise-entered text with an alert field, such as by entering “Alerttriggered at $(AlertDate)” in the “Input Expression” box thatcorresponds to the security incident record field, “Work Notes.” The“Work Notes” field will thus display the text and the relevant alertdate for the past alert, as opposed to just the relevant alert date. Asanother example, the enterprise may prefer that the “Work Notes” fieldincludes text that generally indicates that the security incident recordwas created from an alert by third-party application 608 (e.g., “Alerttriggered by third-party software.”), so as to distinguish the securityincident record from other security incident records that were notcreated in that manner. Other examples are possible as well.

In some implementations, scoped application 600 can be configured toaccept a mapping that is not 1:1. For example, a single past alert fieldcan be mapped to two different security incident record fields, or twopast alert fields can be mapped to a single security incident recordfield so that the data in both past alert fields will be contained anddisplayed in the security incident record field. In otherimplementations, however, scoped application 600 can be configured toaccept only 1:1 mapping. Regardless of whether scoped application 600allows for mappings other than 1:1, a “pairwise” association refers toone past alert field that is mapped to one security incident recordfield. Thus, by way of example, if Field A is mapped to both Field X andField Y, the pairwise associations defined by the mapping data include apairwise association of Field A to Field X, and another pairwiseassociation of Field A to Field Y.

By way of GUI 706 or GUIs with similar functionality, scoped application600 can provide the enterprise with an efficient, flexible way tocustomize how alerts should be mapped to security incident records.

In some implementations, scoped application 600 may also provide theenterprise with the ability to create and apply filtering rules thatdefine criteria for narrowing down the past alerts for which scopedapplication 600 should create security incident records. To facilitatethis, scoped application 600 can provide a GUI containing a filteringrules region for enabling selection of such filtering rules. Inparticular, the filtering rules can specify data that, when contained inone or more fields of a past alert, causes scoped application 600 toomit creating a security incident record that maps to the past alert.Scoped application 600 can then create security incident records inaccordance with the filtering rules. If a past alert does not meet thecriteria of the filtering rules, scoped application 600 may save, insecurity incident database 602 or another database, and perhapsadditionally display, log data associated with the past alert, where thelog data indicates that creation of a security incident record for thepast alert was not successful. For example, scoped application 600 cansave log data and display a notification stating “Alert ID 12345 couldnot be created.”

In some implementations, creating filtering rules can be a separate stepin the multi-step process than creating mapping data, and can beperformed on a separate GUI page, either before or after creatingmapping data. However, FIG. 7D illustrates a scenario in which the thirdstep of the multi-step process includes both creating mapping data andcreating filtering rules. In particular, FIG. 7D illustrates anotherportion, GUI 712, of the same GUI page represented by GUI 706, where GUI712 can be displayed when a user scrolls down from GUI 706. Phrasedanother way, the same GUI page in scoped application 600 can includeboth a mapping region and a filtering rules region.

GUI 712 includes an example form that a filtering rules region mighttake. As shown, filtering rules region 714 includes an option for theenterprise to filter past alerts based on one or more criteria. Forexample, the filtering criteria can include inclusion criteria and, asshown, the enterprise has specified that, when the “Alert Status” fieldof a past alert does not contain the data, “Closed,” scoped application600 should create a security incident record for the past alert. But ifthe “Alert Status” field contains the data, “Closed,” scoped application600 should omit creating a security incident record for the past alert.Other examples criteria are possible as well. In some implementations,scoped application 600 can include exclusion criteria as well.

Similar to the GUIs discussed above, GUI 712 also provides selectablelinks—the “Continue” button and the “Previous” button—for continuing tothe next step of the multi-step process for creating the alert profileor for returning to the previous step of the multi-step process,respectively. When the “Continue” button is selected, for example,scoped application 600 can generate and provide another GUI (e.g., GUI716, shown in FIG. 7E) for performing yet another operation of thedisclosed process, such as viewing a preview of a security incidentrecord created using the mapping data of the alert profile, as discussedin more detail below. When the “Previous” button is selected, scopedapplication 600 can generate and provide the previous GUI, GUI 702.

Using the mapping data stored within computational instance 322, scopedapplication 600 can create security incident records that map to the setof the past alerts and write the created security incident records tosecurity incident database 602. If filtering rules have been created,the act of creating security incident records can be performed inaccordance with the filtering rules, as discussed above.

At some point in time, such as during the act of creating securityincident records or beforehand, scoped application 600 can check to seewhether a security incident record already exists for a given pastalert, so that scoped application 600 does not create any duplicates. Ifa security incident record already exists for the past alert, ratherthan create a duplicate record, scoped application 600 can check datarepresentative of one or more aspects of the alert profile that pulledthe past alert, such as the mapping data. If this data has been changedsince the time the existing security incident record was created, suchas if scoped application 600 receives input data representing an updateto the mapping data, scoped application 600 can update the existingsecurity incident record accordingly. If the data has not been changed,scoped application 600 may take omit updating the existing securityincident record and may instead leave it as is.

In this manner, the enterprise can update the alert profile to reflectany desired changes, such as in a situation where the enterpriseincorrectly set up the mapping data in the first place, and scopedapplication 600 can thereafter create or edit security incident recordsin accordance with those desired changes. For example, scopedapplication 600 can determine that the alert profile has been updated tochange the mapping data (i.e., a change in the pairwise associationsbetween alert fields and security incident record fields), pull pastalerts associated with the selected set of alert rules specified in thealert profile, and then update existing security incident records toreflect the change in the mapping data.

In some scenarios, scoped application 600 can update the existingsecurity incident record within seconds or less of receiving input dataconfirming the update to the alert profile. In other scenarios, however,scoped application 600 may be configured to wait a predetermined periodof time (e.g., fifteen minutes) before updating the existing securityincident record.

In some implementations, the act of checking whether a security incidentrecord already exists for a past alert of the set of the past alerts caninvolve comparing an identifier of the past alert to reference data thatis stored in security incident database 602. Within examples, theidentifier of the past alert can be stored in security incident database602 in a table separate from the security incident records, or can bestored in a different database. This reference data can indicate, foreach of a plurality of past alerts, whether a corresponding securityincident record has previously been created and written to securityincident database 602, and thus already exists for the past alertidentified by the identifier. Thus, the act of checking whether asecurity incident record already exists for a past alert of the set ofthe past alerts can also involve using the comparison to determine thata corresponding security incident record has previously been created andwritten to security incident database 602 for the past alert identifiedby the identifier. Then, in line with the discussion above, if thecorresponding security incident record is active (i.e., not closed) andif the mapping data has been updated, scoped application 600 can use thecurrent, updated mapping data (which may be different from the mappingdata used when the security incident record was first created) to updatethe security incident record and write the updated security incidentrecord to security incident database 602. Whereas, if the correspondingsecurity incident record is inactive (i.e., closed), scoped application600 can either log a message indicating that the corresponding securityincident record is inactive, or can take no action. The act of writingthe updated security incident record to security incident database 602can involve replacing the existing security incident record with theupdated security incident record, or propagating the changes between thetwo to the existing security incident record.

In some implementations, scoped application 600 may enable theenterprise to view a preview of how a sample security incident recordwill appear using the mapping data defined for the alert profile. Theenterprise can use the preview to make sure that there are no errorswith the mapping data and give the enterprise an opportunity to decideif the enterprise would like to make any changes before creatingsecurity incident records using the mapping data. To facilitate this,scoped application 600 can use the mapping data to map one or more ofthe fields of the set of the past alerts to fields of a sample securityincident record (i.e., a draft record) without writing the samplesecurity incident record to security incident database 602. Inparticular, scoped application 600 can select, or the enterprise canspecify, an identifier of a past alert for which to create the samplesecurity incident record. Scoped application 600 can then provide a GUIincluding a preview region in which the enterprise can view the samplesecurity incident record.

FIG. 7E illustrates an example of such a GUI. In particular, GUI 716 isa fourth step in the multi-step process for creating the alert profile.GUI 716 includes an example form that a preview region might take.Although only preview region 718 is shown in GUI 716, in otherimplementations, scoped application 600 can provide a GUI that combinesthe preview region with one or more other regions described herein.

As shown, preview region 718 includes various security incident recordfields, such as those described above. Some of these fields includedata, whereas others do not, possibly due to the enterprise not creatingmapping data that involves those other fields. For example, for one ofthe past alerts (namely, the past alert with the “AlertID” of 3000), the“AlertRuleName” field may state “Simultaneous VPN Usage from MultipleLocations.” Further, the “Input Expression” box that corresponds to the“Short Description” field may include the expression, “$(AlertRuleName)(ID=$(AlertID)).” Thus, when scoped application 600 displays a previewof how fields of the past alert will be mapped to security incidentrecord fields, the “Short Description” field at the bottom of previewregion 718 includes the following text: “Simultaneous VPN Usage fromMultiple Locations (ID=3000),” in accordance with the “Input Expression”box. Ideally, the preview region 718 will indicate to the enterprisewhether the enterprise should edit the mapping data or whether themapping data worked as desired.

Although not shown in FIG. 7E, the GUI page that includes preview region718 can include, similar to the GUIs discussed above, selectable linksfor continuing to the next step of the multi-step process for creatingthe alert profile or for returning to the previous step of themulti-step process. When the “Continue” button is selected, for example,scoped application 600 can generate and provide another GUI (e.g., GUI720, shown in FIG. 7F) for performing yet another operation of thedisclosed process. When the “Previous” button is selected, scopedapplication 600 can generate and provide the previous GUI, GUI 706 (andGUI 712, if GUI 712 is part of the same GUI page for the third step ofthe process).

In some implementations, for a given alert profile, scoped application600 can enable the enterprise to schedule how often scoped application600 will pull past alerts that were triggered by the set of alert rules,and thereby how often scoped application 600 will create (or update)security incident records that map to those past alerts. To facilitatethis, scoped application can provide a GUI that includes a schedulingregion. The scheduling region can include a variety of customizationoptions for selecting how often at which to request and receive pastalerts from application database 606.

FIG. 7F illustrates an example of such a GUI. In particular, GUI 720includes scheduling region 722 that can enable the enterprise to selectwhether to perform a one-time request for past alerts that weretriggered by the set of the alert rules specified by the alert profileor rather to perform an iterative request for the past alerts. Forexample, if the “Historical Alert Retrieval” box is checked, theenterprise may have two one-time request options: (i) request pastalerts triggered since a date that can be specified by the enterpriseand/or (ii) request specific alerts based on known identifiers of thespecific alerts. Further, if the “Ongoing Alert Ingestion Polling” boxis checked, the enterprise can select a frequency at which to requestand receive the set of the past alerts from application database 606,such as by entering text representing the frequency in a designated box.If a frequency is selected, scoped application 600 can request andreceive the set of the past alerts from application database 606 at theselected frequency. As shown, for example, past alerts can be receivedevery five minutes. More particularly, at a first time, a first set ofpast alerts can be received, and then, at a second time five minuteslater (or another period of time later, depending on the selectedfrequency), a second set of past alerts can be received. In someimplementations, the second set of past alerts can include one or morealerts from the first set of past alerts. In other implementations, thesecond set of past alerts can include only past alerts that weretriggered in the time that has elapsed between when the first set ofalerts were received and when scoped application 600 attempted torequest and receive additional alerts in accordance with the selectedfrequency.

In some implementations, scoped application 600 can also be configuredto facilitate updates to the alerts that correspond to the securityincident records. For example, once a past alert has been mapped to asecurity incident record and the security incident record has beenwritten to the security incident database, scoped application 600 maydetect a change in the security incident record and transmit aninstruction or other type of message that, upon receipt by third-partyapplication 608, causes third-party application 608 to updateapplication database 606 to reflect the change.

As a more specific example, scoped application 600 can detect that asecurity incident record in security incident database 602 includes dataindicating that a security incident associated with the securityincident record has been resolved or cancelled. For example, securityincident database 602 can include a table for each security incidentrecord with security incident record fields and corresponding datacontained in each field. When the table is changed such that a field forthe status of the security incident record is marked as closed, scopedapplication 600 can determine that the update has occurred. Scopedapplication 600 can then refer to security incident database 602 to lookup an identifier of a past alert from which the security incident recordwas created. Scoped application 600 can then generate and transmit,either to application database 606 or to third-party application 608, arequest to update application database 606 to indicate that the pastalert is closed. Third-party application 608, or application database606 itself, can then update application database 606 to indicate thatthe past alert is closed. The request can include the identifier of thepast alert so that third-party application 608 and/or applicationdatabase 606 can identify which past alert to update. Other examples arepossible as well.

In some implementations, scoped application 600 can be configured toomit creating or updating a security incident record if one or moresecurity incident record fields do not contain values as a result of themapping. For example, if the enterprise determines, via a samplesecurity incident record, that the priority level field does not containa value, but still attempts to create a security incident record usingthe mapping data, scoped application 600 may prevent the securityincident record from being created. Other examples are possible as well.

VI. EXAMPLE OPERATIONS

FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating an example embodiment. The processillustrated by FIG. 8 may be carried out by a computing device, such ascomputing device 100, and/or a cluster of computing devices, such asserver cluster 200. For the purposes of example, the process illustratedby FIG. 8 will be described as being carried out by a scoped softwareapplication, such as scoped application 600. However, the process can becarried out by other types of devices, applications, or devicesubsystems. For example, the process could be carried out by a portablecomputer, such as a laptop or a tablet device.

The embodiments of FIG. 8 may be simplified by the removal of any one ormore of the features shown therein. Further, these embodiments may becombined with features, aspects, and/or implementations of any of theprevious figures or otherwise described herein.

In FIG. 8, block 800 involves requesting and receiving, from anapplication database associated with a third-party software application,alert rules that trigger alerts when associated events occur in amanaged network. The scoped software application may be executable on acomputing device of a computational instance of a remote networkmanagement platform. The computational instance may be communicativelycoupled and dedicated to the managed network and may contain a securityincident database. The managed network may contain one or more serversand the application database. The third-party software application maybe executable on the one or more servers. The application database maystore, in fields defined in accordance with the third-party softwareapplication: (i) the alert rules and (ii) past alerts that have beentriggered by the alert rules.

Block 802 involves receiving input data representing selection of a setof the alert rules.

Block 804 involves, based on the input data, requesting and receiving,from the application database, a set of the past alerts that have beentriggered by the set of the alert rules.

Block 806 involves, using mapping data stored within the computationalinstance, mapping fields of the set of the past alerts to fields of asample security incident record without writing the sample securityincident record to the security incident database. The mapping data maydefine pairwise associations between the fields of the set of the pastalerts and fields of the security incident records.

Block 808 involves generating and providing for display a representationof a graphical user interface, the representation comprising a previewregion including the sample security incident record.

Block 810 involves, using the mapping data, creating security incidentrecords that map to the set of the past alerts.

Block 812 involves writing, to the security incident database, thesecurity incident records.

In some embodiments, before using the mapping data to create thesecurity incident records, the scoped software application can generateand provide for display a representation of a graphical user interface.The representation can include an alert rule selection region forenabling the selection of the set of the alert rules. The representationcan also include a mapping region for enabling selection of the fieldsof the set of the past alerts and selection of the fields of thesecurity incident records to which to associate to the fields of the setof the past alerts. The scoped software application can then generatethe mapping data based on the selection of the fields of the set of thepast alerts and the selection of the fields of the security incidentrecords.

In some embodiments, while providing for display the representationcomprising the preview region, the scoped software application canreceive second input data representing selection of a link that, whenselected, causes the scoped software application to generate and providefor display a second representation of a graphical user interface. Thesecond representation can include a scheduling region for enablingselection of a frequency at which to request and receive the set of thepast alerts from the application database. In response to receiving thesecond input data, the scoped software application can generate andprovide for display the second representation comprising the schedulingregion. The act of requesting and receiving the set of the past alertsfrom the application database can thus involve requesting and receivingthe set of the past alerts from the application database at the selectedfrequency.

In some embodiments, before using the mapping data to create thesecurity incident records, the scoped software application can generateand provide for display a representation of a graphical user interface,where the representation includes a filtering rules region for enablingselection of filtering rules. The filtering rules can specify data that,when contained in one or more fields of a past alert, causes the scopedsoftware application to omit creating a security incident record thatmaps to the past alert. In such embodiments, the act of creating thesecurity incident records can involve creating the security incidentrecords in accordance with the filtering rules.

In some embodiments, the scoped software application can receive inputdata representing selection of an update to the mapping data. Theupdated mapping data can include a change in the pairwise associationsbetween the fields of the set of the past alerts and the fields of thesecurity incident records. In such embodiments, the scoped softwareapplication can compare an identifier of a past alert of the set of thepast alerts to data that is stored in the security incident database,where the data indicates, for each of a plurality of past alerts,whether a corresponding security incident record has previously beencreated and written to the security incident database for the pastalert. Based on the comparison, the scoped software application candetermine that a corresponding security incident record has previouslybeen created and written to the security incident data base for the pastalert identified by the identifier. The scoped software application canupdate the corresponding security incident record using the updatedmapping data and write the updated security incident record to thesecurity incident database.

In some embodiments, the scoped software application can determine thata security incident record in the security incident database includesdata indicating that a security incident associated with the securityincident record has been resolved or cancelled. Based on thedetermination, the scoped software application can refer to the securityincident database to determine an identifier of a past alert that isassociated with the security incident record. The scoped softwareapplication can then generate and transmit, to the application database,a request to update the application database to indicate that the pastalert is closed, where the request includes the identifier of the pastalert.

In some embodiments, the fields of the set of the past alerts caninclude, for each past alert of the set of the past alerts, event datarepresenting one or more events that have occurred in the managednetwork and contributed to triggering the past alert. In suchembodiments, the event data for a past alert can include an IP addressof each computing device involved in the one or more events and aclassification of the past alert.

In some embodiments, the fields of the set of the past alerts caninclude, for each past alert of the set of the past alerts, one or moreof: a time at which the past alert was triggered, an identifier of thepast alert, an identifier of an alert rule that triggered the pastalert, a status of the past alert, and a severity rating of the pastalert.

In some embodiments, the fields of the security incident records caninclude, for each security incident record of the security incidentrecords, one or more of: a time at which the security incident recordwas created, an identifier of the security incident record, anidentifier of a computing device with which the security incident recordis associated, an identifier of a user with which the security incidentrecord is associated, a status of the security incident record, adescription of a security incident with which the security incidentrecord is associated, a priority level of the security incident record,a category of the security incident record, and an enterprise impactrating associated with the security incident record.

VII. CONCLUSION

The present disclosure is not to be limited in terms of the particularembodiments described in this application, which are intended asillustrations of various aspects. Many modifications and variations canbe made without departing from its scope, as will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Functionally equivalent methods and apparatuseswithin the scope of the disclosure, in addition to those describedherein, will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the foregoingdescriptions. Such modifications and variations are intended to fallwithin the scope of the appended claims.

The above detailed description describes various features and operationsof the disclosed systems, devices, and methods with reference to theaccompanying figures. The example embodiments described herein and inthe figures are not meant to be limiting. Other embodiments can beutilized, and other changes can be made, without departing from thescope of the subject matter presented herein. It will be readilyunderstood that the aspects of the present disclosure, as generallydescribed herein, and illustrated in the figures, can be arranged,substituted, combined, separated, and designed in a wide variety ofdifferent configurations.

With respect to any or all of the message flow diagrams, scenarios, andflow charts in the figures and as discussed herein, each step, block,and/or communication can represent a processing of information and/or atransmission of information in accordance with example embodiments.Alternative embodiments are included within the scope of these exampleembodiments. In these alternative embodiments, for example, operationsdescribed as steps, blocks, transmissions, communications, requests,responses, and/or messages can be executed out of order from that shownor discussed, including substantially concurrently or in reverse order,depending on the functionality involved. Further, more or fewer blocksand/or operations can be used with any of the message flow diagrams,scenarios, and flow charts discussed herein, and these message flowdiagrams, scenarios, and flow charts can be combined with one another,in part or in whole.

A step or block that represents a processing of information cancorrespond to circuitry that can be configured to perform the specificlogical functions of a herein-described method or technique.Alternatively or additionally, a step or block that represents aprocessing of information can correspond to a module, a segment, or aportion of program code (including related data). The program code caninclude one or more instructions executable by a processor forimplementing specific logical operations or actions in the method ortechnique. The program code and/or related data can be stored on anytype of computer readable medium such as a storage device including RAM,a disk drive, a solid state drive, or another storage medium.

The computer readable medium can also include non-transitory computerreadable media such as computer readable media that store data for shortperiods of time like register memory and processor cache. The computerreadable media can further include non-transitory computer readablemedia that store program code and/or data for longer periods of time.Thus, the computer readable media may include secondary or persistentlong term storage, like ROM, optical or magnetic disks, solid statedrives, compact-disc read only memory (CD-ROM), for example. Thecomputer readable media can also be any other volatile or non-volatilestorage systems. A computer readable medium can be considered a computerreadable storage medium, for example, or a tangible storage device.

Moreover, a step or block that represents one or more informationtransmissions can correspond to information transmissions betweensoftware and/or hardware modules in the same physical device. However,other information transmissions can be between software modules and/orhardware modules in different physical devices.

The particular arrangements shown in the figures should not be viewed aslimiting. It should be understood that other embodiments can includemore or less of each element shown in a given figure. Further, some ofthe illustrated elements can be combined or omitted. Yet further, anexample embodiment can include elements that are not illustrated in thefigures.

While various aspects and embodiments have been disclosed herein, otheraspects and embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art.The various aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are for purpose ofillustration and are not intended to be limiting, with the true scopebeing indicated by the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a computational instance ofa remote network management platform, wherein the computational instanceis communicatively coupled and dedicated to a managed network andcontains a security incident database, wherein the managed networkcontains one or more servers and an application database associated witha third-party software application executable on the one or moreservers, wherein the application database stores, in fields defined inaccordance with the third-party software application: (i) alert rulesthat trigger alerts when associated events occur in the managed networkand (ii) past alerts that have been triggered by the alert rules; ascoped software application, executable on a computing device of thecomputational instance, and configured to: request and receive, from theapplication database, the alert rules; receive input data representingselection of a set of the alert rules; based on the input data, requestand receive, from the application database, a set of the past alertsthat have been triggered by the set of the alert rules; using mappingdata stored within the computational instance, map fields of the set ofthe past alerts to fields of a sample security incident record withoutwriting the sample security incident record to the security incidentdatabase, wherein the mapping data defines pairwise associations betweenthe fields of the set of the past alerts and fields of the securityincident records; generate and provide for display a representation of agraphical user interface, the representation comprising a preview regionincluding the sample security incident record; using the mapping data,create security incident records that map to the set of the past alerts;and write, to the security incident database, the security incidentrecords.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the scoped softwareapplication is further configured to: before using the mapping data tocreate the security incident records, generate and provide for display arepresentation of a graphical user interface, the representationcomprising: an alert rule selection region for enabling the selection ofthe set of the alert rules, and a mapping region for enabling selectionof the fields of the set of the past alerts and selection of the fieldsof the security incident records to which to associate to the fields ofthe set of the past alerts; and generate the mapping data based on theselection of the fields of the set of the past alerts and the selectionof the fields of the security incident records.
 3. The system of claim1, wherein the scoped software application is further configured to:while providing for display the representation comprising the previewregion, receive second input data representing selection of a link that,when selected, causes the scoped software application to generate andprovide for display a second representation of a graphical userinterface, the second representation comprising a scheduling region forenabling selection of a frequency at which to request and receive theset of the past alerts from the application database; and in response toreceiving the second input data, generate and provide for display thesecond representation comprising the scheduling region, whereinrequesting and receiving the set of the past alerts from the applicationdatabase comprises requesting and receiving the set of the past alertsfrom the application database at the selected frequency.
 4. The systemof claim 1, wherein the scoped software application is furtherconfigured to: before using the mapping data to create the securityincident records, generate and provide for display a representation of agraphical user interface, the representation comprising a filteringrules region for enabling selection of filtering rules, wherein thefiltering rules specify data that, when contained in one or more fieldsof a past alert, causes the scoped software application to omit creatinga security incident record that maps to the past alert, wherein creatingthe security incident records comprises creating the security incidentrecords in accordance with the filtering rules.
 5. The system of claim1, wherein the scoped software application is further configured to:receive input data representing selection of an update to the mappingdata, wherein the updated mapping data includes a change in the pairwiseassociations between the fields of the set of the past alerts and thefields of the security incident records; compare an identifier of a pastalert of the set of the past alerts to data that is stored in thesecurity incident database, wherein the data indicates, for each of aplurality of past alerts, whether a corresponding security incidentrecord has previously been created and written to the security incidentdatabase for the past alert; based on the comparison, determine that acorresponding security incident record has previously been created andwritten to the security incident data base for the past alert identifiedby the identifier; using the updated mapping data, update thecorresponding security incident record; and write the updated securityincident record to the security incident database.
 6. The system ofclaim 1, wherein the scoped software application is further configuredto: determine that a security incident record in the security incidentdatabase includes data indicating that a security incident associatedwith the security incident record has been resolved or cancelled; basedon the determination, refer to the security incident database todetermine an identifier of a past alert that is associated with thesecurity incident record; and generate and transmit, to the applicationdatabase, a request to update the application database to indicate thatthe past alert is closed, wherein the request includes the identifier ofthe past alert.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein the fields of the setof the past alerts include, for each past alert of the set of the pastalerts, event data representing one or more events that have occurred inthe managed network and contributed to triggering the past alert.
 8. Thesystem of claim 7, wherein the event data for a past alert includes anInternet Protocol (IP) address of each computing device involved in theone or more events and a classification of the past alert.
 9. The systemof claim 1, wherein the fields of the set of the past alerts include,for each past alert of the set of the past alerts, one or more of: atime at which the past alert was triggered, an identifier of the pastalert, an identifier of an alert rule that triggered the past alert, astatus of the past alert, and a severity rating of the past alert. 10.The system of claim 1, wherein the fields of the security incidentrecords include, for each security incident record of the securityincident records, one or more of: a time at which the security incidentrecord was created, an identifier of the security incident record, anidentifier of a computing device with which the security incident recordis associated, an identifier of a user with which the security incidentrecord is associated, a status of the security incident record, adescription of a security incident with which the security incidentrecord is associated, a priority level of the security incident record,a category of the security incident record, and an enterprise impactrating associated with the security incident record.
 11. A methodcomprising: requesting and receiving, by a scoped software application,from an application database associated with a third-party softwareapplication, alert rules that trigger alerts when associated eventsoccur in a managed network, wherein the scoped software application isexecutable on a computing device of a computational instance of a remotenetwork management platform, wherein the computational instance iscommunicatively coupled and dedicated to the managed network andcontains a security incident database, wherein the managed networkcontains one or more servers and the application database, wherein thethird-party software application is executable on the one or moreservers, and wherein the application database stores, in fields definedin accordance with the third-party software application: (i) the alertrules and (ii) past alerts that have been triggered by the alert rules;receiving, by the scoped software application, input data representingselection of a set of the alert rules; based on the input data,requesting and receiving, by the scoped software application, from theapplication database, a set of the past alerts that have been triggeredby the set of the alert rules; using mapping data stored within thecomputational instance, mapping, by the scoped software application,fields of the set of the past alerts to fields of a sample securityincident record without writing the sample security incident record tothe security incident database, wherein the mapping data definespairwise associations between the fields of the set of the past alertsand fields of the security incident records; generating and providingfor display, by the scoped software application, a representation of agraphical user interface, the representation comprising a preview regionincluding the sample security incident record; using the mapping data,creating, by the scoped software application, security incident recordsthat map to the set of the past alerts; and writing, by the scopedsoftware application, to the security incident database, the securityincident records.
 12. The method of claim 11, further comprising: beforeusing the mapping data to create the security incident records,generating and providing for display, by the scoped softwareapplication, a representation of a graphical user interface, therepresentation comprising: an alert rule selection region for enablingthe selection of the set of the alert rules, and a mapping region forenabling selection of the fields of the set of the past alerts andselection of the fields of the security incident records to which toassociate to the fields of the set of the past alerts; and generating,by the scoped software application, the mapping data based on theselection of the fields of the set of the past alerts and the selectionof the fields of the security incident records.
 13. The method of claim11, further comprising: before using the mapping data to create thesecurity incident records, generating and providing for display, by thescoped software application, a representation of a graphical userinterface, the representation comprising a filtering rules region forenabling selection of filtering rules, wherein the filtering rulesspecify data that, when contained in one or more fields of a past alert,causes the scoped software application to omit creating a securityincident record that maps to the past alert, wherein creating thesecurity incident records comprises creating the security incidentrecords in accordance with the filtering rules.
 14. The method of claim11, further comprising: receiving, by the scoped software application,input data representing selection of an update to the mapping data,wherein the updated mapping data includes a change in the pairwiseassociations between the fields of the set of the past alerts and thefields of the security incident records; comparing, by the scopedsoftware application, an identifier of a past alert of the set of thepast alerts to data that is stored in the security incident database,wherein the data indicates, for each of a plurality of past alerts,whether a corresponding security incident record has previously beencreated and written to the security incident database for the pastalert; based on the comparison, determining, by the scoped softwareapplication, that a corresponding security incident record haspreviously been created and written to the security incident data basefor the past alert identified by the identifier; using the updatedmapping data, updating, by the scoped software application, thecorresponding security incident record; and writing, by the scopedsoftware application, the updated security incident record to thesecurity incident database.
 15. The method of claim 11, furthercomprising: determining, by the scoped software application, that asecurity incident record in the security incident database includes dataindicating that a security incident associated with the securityincident record has been resolved or cancelled; based on thedetermination, referring, by the scoped software application, to thesecurity incident database to determine an identifier of a past alertthat is associated with the security incident record; and generating andtransmitting, by the scoped software application, to the applicationdatabase, a request to update the application database to indicate thatthe past alert is closed, wherein the request includes the identifier ofthe past alert.
 16. An article of manufacture including a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium, having stored thereon program instructionsthat, upon execution by a computing device of a computational instanceof a remote network management platform, cause the computing device toperform operations comprising: requesting and receiving, from anapplication database associated with a third-party software application,alert rules that trigger alerts when associated events occur in amanaged network, wherein the computational instance is communicativelycoupled and dedicated to the managed network and contains a securityincident database, wherein the managed network contains one or moreservers and the application database, wherein the third-party softwareapplication is executable on the one or more servers, and wherein theapplication database stores, in fields defined in accordance with thethird-party software application: (i) the alert rules and (ii) pastalerts that have been triggered by the alert rules; receiving input datarepresenting selection of a set of the alert rules; based on the inputdata, requesting and receiving, from the application database, a set ofpast alerts that have been triggered by the set of the alert rules;using mapping data stored within the computational instance, mappingfields of the set of the past alerts to fields of a sample securityincident record without writing the sample security incident record tothe security incident database, wherein the mapping data definespairwise associations between the fields of the set of the past alertsand fields of the security incident records; generating and providingfor display a representation of a graphical user interface, therepresentation comprising a preview region including the sample securityincident record; using the mapping data, creating security incidentrecords that map to the set of the past alerts; and writing, to thesecurity incident database, the security incident records.
 17. Thearticle of manufacture of claim 16, the operations further comprising:before using the mapping data to create the security incident records,generating and providing for display a representation of a graphicaluser interface, the representation comprising: an alert rule selectionregion for enabling the selection of the set of the alert rules, and amapping region for enabling selection of the fields of the set of thepast alerts and selection of the fields of the security incident recordsto which to associate to the fields of the set of the past alerts; andgenerating the mapping data based on the selection of the fields of theset of the past alerts and the selection of the fields of the securityincident records.
 18. The article of manufacture of claim 16, theoperations further comprising: determining that a security incidentrecord in the security incident database includes data indicating that asecurity incident associated with the security incident record has beenresolved or cancelled; based on the determination, referring to thesecurity incident database to determine an identifier of a past alertthat is associated with the security incident record; and generating andtransmitting, to the application database, a request to update theapplication database to indicate that the past alert is closed, whereinthe request includes the identifier of the past alert.
 19. The articleof manufacture of claim 16, wherein the fields of the set of the pastalerts include, for each past alert of the set of the past alerts, eventdata representing one or more events that have occurred in the managednetwork and contributed to triggering the past alert.
 20. The article ofmanufacture of claim 16, the operations further comprising: before usingthe mapping data to create the security incident records, generating andproviding for display a representation of a graphical user interface,the representation comprising a filtering rules region for enablingselection of filtering rules, wherein the filtering rules specify datathat, when contained in one or more fields of a past alert, causes thescoped software application to omit creating a security incident recordthat maps to the past alert, wherein creating the security incidentrecords comprises creating the security incident records in accordancewith the filtering rules.